The Fall of the USSR: What Went Wrong?

1Dime Radio

Part 3: Was The Soviet Union "Socialist'? on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OneDime

Part 2 on the Marxist Project's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNalGyK3DaK37GTLIHSwmyA/featured

In this podcast I am joined by YouTuber, friend, and grad student The Marxist Project, who makes excellent videos on Marxist theory and Soviet history. In this in-depth podcast, we put into question various competing narratives that aim to rationalize the tragedy of the Soviet Union. We talk about some of the many problems in the Soviet Union and various historical narratives about what went wrong and what lead to it's demise.

For this podcast, we try to avoid the hurdles of one dimensional narratives from various ideological tendencies (Marxism-Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Left Communism, Orthodox Marxism, Anarchism, Liberalism, conservatism, etc..) and try to give a balanced analysis of the USSR and the problems it faced.

Check out The Marxist Project's video on the Fall of the Soviet Union: https://youtu.be/N7Z-D4eybZI

Timestamp:

0:00 Intro

6:10 The Collapse of the Soviet Union

16:28 The Civil War: Doomed From The Start?

27:58 Semi-Feudal Underdevelopment

41:33 Collectivization, WW2, and Industrialization

57:54 Famines, Incentives, and Lysenkoism

1:10:00 Repression and Civil Liberties

1:28:32 The Red Purges and Opportunism

1:48:32 Was the USSR Democratic?

2:13:10 Contrarianism and Denialism

2:20:41 Central Planning

Book recommendations on Soviet History:

The Soviet Century by Moshe Lewin

A People's History of the Russian Revolution by Neil Faulkner

October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville

The Thinking Reed: Intellectuals and the Soviet State by Boris Kagarlitsky

Everyday Stalinism by Sheila Fitzpatrick

Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation by Alexei Yurchak

Revolution From Above: The Demise of the Soviet System by David Kotz

This is part of a 3 part series on the political problems in the Soviet Union. Part 2 will be on the Marxist Project's channel and Part 3 will be a Patreon exclusive podcast only available to my lovely Patrons (:

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